We have been fed an endless diet of Trump-Russia collusion by the media. It is based on the dossier compiled by one Christopher Steele. The more we learn about it, the more curious it becomes.
The dossier was the basis for the FBI to secure a warrant to spy on Carter Page. That in itself is very curious. Page has been on the FBI radar since at least 2014. Page is thought to have helped the FBI snare Russian spies in 2013 back then although he denies it. You’d think that the FBi would be able to determine if Page was a spy in all the time. I’ll have more to say about Page soon.
The Nunes memo made several key claims:
- The FBI used an unverified, allegedly biased document known as the “Steele dossier”to get a warrant in October 2016 to surveil Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. The dossier, prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleges the existence of a conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Russian government. The Steele dossier was partially financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
- Senior FBI and Justice Department officials knew that the Steele dossier was indirectly funded by a lawyer for the Clinton campaign and the DNC, but didn’t disclose this in their application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court — a court that approves surveillance warrants pertaining to national security and foreign intelligence. They also didn’t disclose it when renewing their applications requesting additional time for surveillance.
- In September 2016, Steele spoke with Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele told Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” Ohr’s wife worked for the research firm, Fusion GPS, that hired Steele on behalf of the DNC/Clinton lawyer.
- The head of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap apparently said corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the FISA application.
Additionally, the memo also noted:
“McCabe testified before the committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the [FISA court] without the Steele dossier information”
Steele lied to the FBI
The narrative is laid out in the Nunes memo. It notes that at the time the FBI sought the Page warrant on Oct. 21 “the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele” for the same information the bureau submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for the warrant. Mr. Steele wrote his last election dossier memo on Oct. 19, apparently ending his $160,000 in payments from Fusion GPS, the investigative firm that had hired him to produce the dossier.
The Nunes memo later states, “Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations — an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016 Mother Jones article by David Corn.”
The FBI called him a “less than reliable source.”
For your amusement- read this
Donald Trump dossier: intelligence sources vouch for author’s credibility
But that was back in January 2017. Things change.
Steele admitted that his dossier was “unverified.”
Then there’s the circular sourcing:
Third, the FISA warrant application cited as corroborating evidence an article in Yahoo News written by Michael Isikoff that was published on Sept. 23, 2016 and focused on a trip to Moscow made by Page in July 2016.
But that Yahoo News article couldn’t really be considered “corroboration” of the dossier compiled by Steele, as it was revealed that Steele himself had provided the information upon which this article was based to Isikoff. This tactic is known as circular sourcing, or making a single source of information appear as though it is coming from multiple independent sources.
So now “multiple sources” are dwindling. Now on to the second dossier, written by Clinton hack Cody Shearer.
Frightened out of his wits by Devin Nunes’ promise of the next memo exposing the corruption of the DOJ, Jonathan Winer, a DOJ official under John Kerry, came out as the person passing on propaganda against Donald Trump prior to the election:
Around that same time, Winer happened to speak with “old friend” and long-time Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal, whom he met 30 years ago. He and Blumenthal “discussed Steele’s reports” — an admission that Blumenthal, a close Clinton friend, knew about the Steele dossier as early as September 2016 (even though Clinton herself denied knowing about it until January 2017).
Winer said during that meeting Blumenthal gave him notes from a “journalist” he “did not know,” Cody Shearer, that corroborated the salacious allegation in Steele’s dossier that Trump had hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed. “What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources,” Winer wrote.
So first it went Steele -> Winer -> Nuland -> Kerry
Then it went Shearer -> Blumenthal -> Winer -> Steele
See how it works?
In his confessional Winer said something interesting:
That same month, Winer met Blumenthal, who provided him with notes on Trump and Russia compiled by another Clinton insider, Cody Shearer. “What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources,” Winer writes in The Washington Post. He decided to show the notes to Steele, who told him the information could be used to corroborate his dossier. Steele walked away with a copy of the notes, which he provided to the FBI.
The same information from different sources? You mean like the first dossier and the circular sourcing?
The Guardian reports that the Shearer dossier “corroborates” the Steele dossier based on Shearer’s “independent sources.”
The FBI was unable to verify anything in the dossier other than Carter Page traveling to Russia.
One has to wonder- did it go Kerry -> obama? Nunes stated that both Kerry and Lynch were briefed.
Then we learn that Sen. Mark Warner (D) was engaged in back channel communications with a Russian agent to get dirt on Trump:
A lobbyist who served as a back channel between Christopher Steele and Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner served as legal counsel to Russia’s foreign minister and lobbied on behalf of a Russian oligarch with ties to Paul Manafort.
Documents filed with the Department of Justice show that Adam Waldman of Endeavor Law Firm, served as counsel to Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, from 2010 until last year. He has also worked for Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire aluminum magnate with close ties to Putin, since 2009.
The connection between Waldman and Steele is somewhat surprising given the former British spy’s work on the dossier, which purports to expose a Kremlin conspiracy with the Trump campaign.
And he didn’t want to leave a paper trail.
John Solomon suggests that all the FBI sources will be tied to Clinton:
It’s likely that all four sources the FBI used to start spying on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign have connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to a top investigative journalist.
Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal, both longtime political hit men for the couple, are tied to a “pipeline of Clinton-related information” that led into the Department of State, forming a second “dossier” of dirt on that was used to get spy warrants.
Another source of information to the FBI was Fusion GPS, which was being paid by a prominent Washington, D.C., law firm, using funds from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“When that is all put together … four out of four things the FBI used to start listening in on the Trump campaign comes back to the Clinton family,” said John Solomon, an award-winning investigative journalist and executive vice president of The Hill.
The FBI may be guilty of some politics in the so-called Trump-Russia collusion case, said former Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, sitting in Friday night for host Laura Ingraham on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
Sens. Grassley and Graham have sent a criminal referral for Christopher Steele to the DOJ. Steele lied to the FBI.
All of this makes me wonder- were there any Russians involved in any of this or was it all a fabrication of the Clinton campaign?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
Thirty-six of the 50 states in the United States flat-out disagree with you and fully recognize gay marriages the same as they do any others. Only 10 states have banned it outright and had the bans stand; another 4 have made it legally complicated. The federal government recognizes it. I guess you’ve been outvoted.
There’s no going back, because the younger generation generally thinks the entire business of discrimination against gay people is ridiculous. The truth is that they own the future; we don’t.
There was a time—which I clearly remember—when a number of states were still trying to keep interracial marriages illegal. How did that turn out?
@Greg: Russian interference and collusion. We don’t have to recognize or honor it. Resist. Scream at the sky. Waaa.
Marriage is between a man and a woman. Even Obama and Hillary recognized that (until they needed to shore up the political support they had lost).
It’s not discrimination. It is merely a fact.
@Greg:
Maybe you’ll actually believe the IRS?
Seems fairly self-explanatory to me…
@Greg:
Remember that recommendation to get your short term memory issue checked out?
Just sayin’
The above comment referred to the topic under discussion—the Defense of Marriage lawsuit. No one who worked for the IRS took the Fifth Amendment in connection with that case.
H.R. 2458happily went nowhere but the dustbin. It should have gone nowhere else. Congress doesn’t get to legislate away a person’s Fifth Amendment protections based upon that person’s place of employment. They may be glad the bill failed before Mueller’s investigation is done.
@Greg: Dammit you are right on the 5th amendment, but if they are found lacking in their jobs it should be easier to can their butts, like the government accountability crews epic waste.
@Jay: Greg want’s Trump’s Schedule A, B, C, D, E and F, his SS number, his PIN numbers, the combination to his wall safe, his Twitter password and all his security questions. But nothing will satisfy the left’s lust for SOMETHING that would finally justify their bigoted hatred of Trump… all because he dared defeat the High Priestess of Lies and Corruption, Hillary.
And we should both apologize; Greg obviously meant no one in the IRS had scurried away from their illegal activities supporting Democrat agendas and pleaded the 5th… TODAY.
@kitt:
Uh, that fine was paid by YOU. And ME. And Greg. WE paid the fines for the illegal activities of the government and the Obama administration was in the corruption business.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: You know as soon as Trumps taxes for the last 10 years are released he will love him dearly and defend him to the death.
Then this genius statement: NOM’s complaint argued that this could only have come from the IRS. Actually, the chain of custody of the document began with NOM itself.
So their list of donors was compiled by them, my god what a revelation. This detective work is worthy of MSLSD style… say something obvious then something completely obvious,(behave like its shocking) then lie.
@kitt:
It’s the Hillary defense; it’s always someone else’s fault.
I would be more supportive of Trump releasing his information if I had seen any liberals react to the Clinton’s lying on their return (and having to amend it with NO PENALTIES) about $20 million in foreign donations (ANYONE could overlook $20 million and where it came from). But they didn’t and, based on their reaction to Trump taking a legal and honest business loss deduction, I simply don’t want to hear it.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #57:
I want to know that someone entirely trustworthy and competent has looked into the full extent of the Trump family’s entanglement with laundered Russian money, and the degree to which the threat of exposure might give the Putin regime leverage over the President of the United States.
I want to know that because the Trump administration has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be incredibly naive with regard to even the most obvious national security vulnerabilities, and because Vladimir Putin is an absolute master at identifying and exploiting such vulnerabilities.
Given everything that’s known, can you honestly tell me that there’s no cause for serious concern?
@Greg:
If it’s Wednesday, it must be time for Greg to complain about Russian interference again…
As I’ve mentioned before…recall when Mitt brought up Russia as a threat prior to the 2012 election, just how badly the left mocked him? Now the left is all about the ‘Red Menace’.
Your guy had the helm from 2012 until 2016. How did things manage to get so bad with the Russians with the oh-so-smart liberals in charge?
Hillary’s mis-labeled ‘Reset’ button? Obama’s “I’ll have more flexibility after my election”? Ring any bells?
Apparently nobody in the Obama administration was listening either (well, except maybe illegally for any Trump campaign communications with Russia) and now, as usual, the left is blaming the right for not immediately solving the messes they created.
This would be the same Steele dossier of which Vox (not exactly a right-wing publication) says:
And which two senior FBI officials (well, OK, now former FBI officials…) told us was ‘unverified’?
I’m so confused…is it or isn’t it the basis of the investigation? Or rather, how the FBI manipulated the FISA request in order to begin the investigation?
How can the FBI be using it as a ‘roadmap’ if it’s ‘unverified’?
Actually, I’m not really confused, like most anything, the left will interpret it in whatever way best meets the expediency of the moment. Even if that contradicts what they said ten minutes ago. And do it with a straight face.
To which I will once again ask – exactly how do these supposed ‘fake-news’ Russian ads differ materially from the current Democratic Party ads and speeches? Are the Dems spreading fake news?
If exploiting (or attempting to create) divisions over race and immigration are evidence of Russian interference in the election, just how exactly were they supporting Trump over Hillary?
Aren’t those the Democratic base ‘red meat’ issues?
Inquiring minds want to know!
@Greg:
No. You don’t. You don’t because you didn’t worry about Hillary’s corrupt past or her corruption and incompetence as Secretary of State. All you want is something… ANYTHING… to justify your bigoted hatred. You can’t find it, so you keep reaching further and further hoping, hoping, hoping something might someday turn up.
Your suspicion that Trump has been involved in laundering money from Russia (funny, since that is what Hillary was doing) is based on what exactly? That Trump was in business and there is a place called Russia? It must be because that is pretty much all you have.
Yes, I can tell you there is no serious reason for concern.
Again, you supported Hillary and she simply presented all the classified information the State Department had for anyone that wanted it; you want me to believe you have some concerns about Trump’s handling of national security? Really? His biggest problem has been leaks from Obama loyalists.
Now, you never answered my question about your acceptance of the Obama administration tampering in the elections in other countries, but I have another question; has it yet dawned on you that there is a very good chance the Obama administration was conducting illegal surveillance of US citizens?
@Greg:
Meaning someone, I suppose, like the former members of the Mueller team which had to be removed or reassigned due to bias or conflicts of interest?
And the ‘entanglements’ are so far alleged – and from what I’ve read pretty damn close to the conspiracy theory territory you mock conservatives for.
Recall how the articles originally alleging subpoena’s for ‘Trump’s’ banking records had to be retracted due to the fact that it wasn’t actually Trump’s records they wanted after all.
So, really, just more wish-casting, hoping and praying to maybe, possibly find some kind of dirt anywhere.
Wait, I thought it was the DNC that got hacked by the Russians?
Oh, right, it was…
And remember Debbie Wasserman-Schulz’s IT team? Her threats to the cops about her laptop?
And the fact that neither of those were allowed to be investigated by the intelligence services?
Hillary’s bathroom server with classified emails outside of the government secured systems?
Do you really want to talk about who is naïve regarding ‘obvious national security vulnerabilities’?
Given everything that is known about the ‘competency’ of Democrats handling these issues versus the alleged problems you’re trying to raise, can you honestly tell me there is any reason to believe the Democrats can claim the high ground here?
I’m afraid your judgement simply can’t be trusted, nor can that of the people you tend to support. Many of them are far more concerned with covering up all indications of a clear and present danger than they are with investigating and determining their extent. You can wave your flags and thump your bibles and try to make it mandatory that all stand at attention and pledge allegiance to the Leader, while loudly proclaiming how unchristian, unpatriotic, and unintelligent anyone who disagrees with you is, but it only becomes more apparent with every passing day that you and the people you support are the threat.
Yes. The Democrats can claim the high ground here. If for no other reason, because the standards that Trump & Company are setting on so many issues are so appallingly, unbelievably low—national security and conflicts of interest being prime examples. That is my carefully considered opinion. If you want abundant evidence in support of it, turn on any mainstream media information outlet other than Fox News. Stick your head outside of the right-wing echo box for a moment, listen carefully, and think critically. The simple fact that Trump’s ideological factotums are doing everything in their power to stop any close examination of his business entanglements, his campaign, and his administration should tell you something right from the start.
@Greg: Trumps polling numbers up again damn there are so many of us that cant be trusted maybe you should think of running away with your tail tucked, lets see Venezuela? Nice socialist democracy, no room in Europe its overflowing with refugees hey cant afford, so social services will be scarce, help me out here here has the lefts ideology worked?
Just saying the left had its hane we want our shot at trying to repair the long term damage.
@Greg:
Heh. That’s rich. A Hillary supporter complaining about others covering things up.
Double Heh. I have a bible (actually more than one). Don’t remember ever thumping on any of them.
I realize lefties hate the Pledge of Allegiance, but if you google it, you’ll find the allegiance is to the ‘Flag of the United States of America’, not ‘the Leader’.
In case you don’t remember (funny how that issue keeps coming up…), the left owns far more weirdness on Leader Worship than conservatives.
There are more…
Geez, time for another chill pill Greg. While I no doubt have insinuated a lack of thought behind some positions and/or a lack of facts supporting them, I’d like to see a quote from any post I’ve made claiming someone was unchristian or unpatriotic. Let alone doing so ‘loudly’.
Hell I apologized to Rich a while back for the tone I took in one reply back to him and I didn’t even insinuate anything like him being unpatriotic or unchristian.
Don’t believe I’ve ever called anyone a threat either… 🙂
Not sure you can get much lower than actually getting hacked by the Russians and refusing to allow an investigation. I suppose one might even be able to conclude that such refusal could be considered a ‘cover up’? Oh, right…lefties would NEVER cover anything up…
I will give your opinion my carefully considered weight of its relative worth…
Oh, and Triple Heh. I have never watched Fox News. Perhaps you might consider something other than CNN or MSNBC or any of the other self-declared anti-Trump networks.
@Jay:
Well, Obama did tell Putin to cut it out. One can only imagine the pants wetting Putin experienced from THAT dressing down.
Ah, yes. The indoctrination of the Obama Youth. That, along with Obama imploring watchful citizens to do their duty to the collective and turn in those who exhibit signs of not being properly indoctrinated made the intentions of that regime pretty clear to me.
@Greg:
Well, they must be damn good at it because, after looking for it for almost 2 years, you have not found one single, tiny shred of evidence of it. If true, they were certainly better at covering their tracks than the Obama administration was at covering up its illegal surveillance or weaponization of the IRS, DOJ and FBI.
You know, you think all the smoke (along with the mirrors) from the endless string of false accusations and phony crimes made up indicates SOMETHING must be there but instead all that is there is what we refer to as “mental illness”.
No, they can’t. Constantly lying and trying to destroy innocent people for a political aim is not the high road. When it is directed at a duly elected President of the United States, it’s called “sedition”.
You never answered my questions, but you seem upset. Take your time. Tomorrow will be just fine.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #67:
Our nation’s intelligence community strongly disagrees with you.
Trump’s Top Intelligence Officials Contradict Him on Russian Meddling
Though you would never know that if you listened to Pence’s account of what they said.
Pence, like is boss, is a shameless liar. No such conclusion was voiced by any of them. They’ve carefully avoided expressing any opinion on that point—no doubt realizing Trump would likely go completely bonkers if they did so.
@Greg:
Nice pivot. I am talking about Trump’s involvement which to this date still remains nothing but a sick fantasy whipped up by tortured, mentally ill minds.
Numerous intelligence agencies all stated previously that NO votes were changed, no outcomes altered by Russian meddling. Do you have evidence that that assessment has changed?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/01/05/clapper-no-evidence-russians-changed-votes-in-presidential-election-n2267531
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/03/20/nsa-director-we-have-no-evidence-russia-changed-votes-in-michigan-ohio-pennsylania-n2301539
http://woodtv.com/2017/03/20/russia-hacking-inquiry-goes-before-public-hearing/
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/356296-cia-intelligence-assessment-has-not-changed-on-russian-election
Really, Greg? No one? Shameless liar? I wonder who does the lying. I guess for some people, just some whining baby making accusations does not constitute a national emergency.
You can hop to those questions I poses any time.
@Greg:
You’ve repeated this statement numerous times in numerous threads lately. So, I did more research on top of the research for links already posted…
As the old joke goes, I’m typing this slowly…
Gee – an EO issued almost a year ago. On Cybersecurity. By Trump.
And a budget increase in the proposed DHS budget. For Cybersecurity. By Trump.
That almost sounds like ‘doing something’ rather than doing nothing.
But wait! There’s more!
Wait. The Chairperson is a Republican? I was told the R’s were doing nothing on this.
Oh, and note the lag in dates between when the new director was appointed by President Trump and when she was confirmed by the Senate.
You don’t suppose some of the issues and delays have anything to do with the Dem’s slow-walking confirmations for Trump’s appointees do you?
But now that she’s there…
Last, but not least, there is a bipartisan ‘Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee’ consisting of six Republicans and four Democrats.
This activity is supposedly an “appallingly, unbelievably low” standard. Anybody have any data on what the previous administration did to set the bar higher?
@Jay, #70:
Amazing. They’ve already tightened up cyber-security to such a degree that the first three links in your post don’t work.
Talk is cheap. And in this case, vague. I’m unaware of any specific actions taken to address Russia’s effort to alter the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. I haven’t even seen acknowledgement by the Trump administration that such an attack on our system took place. Warnings that similar efforts are underway with respect to the 2018 elections are apparently being ignored. Instead, we’ve had repeated attempts to discredit the intelligence and investigative community that raised the issue and presented their assessments.
@Greg: Obama interfered with elections in Israel. I didn’t catch your outrage over it.
Since voting machines are not networked it would take a massive effort to try to change votes from precinct to precinct. Which is why it did not happen. Also no one has effectively explained why Russia would prefer Trump over Clinton. After all the 80’s called and it wanted its foreign policy back. Then there is the reset button and more flexibility too.
Then of course not much has changed since this. https://fcw.com/articles/2017/06/21/jeh-johnson-election-hpsci.aspx
BTW the dow finished up 300+ points today. Guess you forgot to post that one.
@Jay:
I wonder if that is wise. After all, perhaps having those who are most involved in trying to alter the outcome of elections would put those with the expertise at the crux of the problem.
@Greg:
Perhaps a law that states if you claim you have been hacked, you have to allow the FBI access to your network. I bet THAT would cut down on a lot of hacking… or claims of it, at least.
And probably, until you sign up with one of the intelligence agencies working on it, you will remain so. Like I said, all those intelligence chiefs stated they would not discuss in public the activities they are initiating.
Well, Trump has not take the substantive and proven effective step of wagging his finger at Putin and saying, “No, no, no” but we really can’t know what steps are being taken. Since Trump has proven himself to be all the leader Obama never was, I have confidence much is being done.
Obama did that by trying to turn them into Democrat muscle. Unmasking that isn’t pretty, but thanks to Obama, it now has to be done. I’ve stated I trust and respect their assessments… YOU doubt their veracity and ability to carry out the security of our elections.
@Mully:
Yeah, I asked about that. To date, no answer. I’ve wondered why I never see Greg and AJ in the same place at the same time….
Apologies in advance for the length…
@Greg:
Sorry to disappoint you. No grand failure by the Trump administration, just operator failure on my part. Tried to use some HTML code to shorten the links. Went back old school. They should work now.
You mean (now that the links are fixed…) other than the specific actions above? I suppose if the D’s were in charge they could fix everything in a week – even though the previous 8 years apparently weren’t enough.
Accusations are cheap too. And just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist…
Recall that the election systems are controlled by the individual states. So, ultimately not directly under federal control. The feds, as noted, have made the designation and offered the help. It’s up to the states to accept. (IE, Blame Trump isn’t applicable…)
Ignored by who?
Both of those articles date from just a week ago or so. They sure sound to me like acknowledgement by current officials of the Trump administration that it DID occur – but that the states affected (maybe some of them that oppose Trump at every turn?) are the ones not doing what they should be to tighten up their systems.
Well, here’s a Politifact article which quotes the NYT. Neither of which is exactly a poster child for conservative leanings…
So who is trying to discredit the FBI admissions that there are ‘no conclusive or direct links’; that the interference was ‘aimed at disrupting the election rather than electing Trump’; or that the Obama administration believed ‘our elections were free and fair from a cybersecurity perspective’?
Could it be (from the middle of the NYT article)
Ahhh…disgruntled Hillary supporters. Admittedly, there has been proven to be substantial overlap between disgruntled Hillary supporters and FBI investigators, but still…
It’s becoming clear that the intent is for the left to establish the ‘Red Menace’ meme in order to be able to cry ‘interference’ again if they don’t win in 2018.
@Mully, #72:
They didn’t hack our voting machines. They hacked the brains of American voters, using preexisting social media advertising algorithms to narrowly target the most susceptible audiences in critical geographical areas. It didn’t take that many changed votes to alter the electoral college outcome. That was the entire point of their efforts to access state voter registration rolls. In the end, the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election turned on only 77,744 total votes spread over the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Under Obama, the State Department sent $350,000 to OneVoice, an organization supporting Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations. OneVoice politically opposed Benjamin Netanyahu and mounted a conventional election campaign against him. To my mind, that’s not quite the same as a clandestine hacking, false news, and social media propaganda operation. To my way of thinking, after Netanyahu’s GOP-supported effort to sabotage the Obama administration’s Iranian nuclear arms negotiations, he had it coming.
@Jay:
All they lacked was finishing up. Now, if Hillary had been elected, I can almost guarantee you we would have heard no more about Russian hacking or inference.
They probably bumped into some Democrats mucking around there as well.
Thanks for assisting, Democrats! We couldn’t have done it without you.
Sure there’s no evidence whatsoever to substantiate Hilla… er, the FBI’s accusations but they’ve only been looking into it for two years. They’re just warming up. In another 6 years, they’ll probably wrap it up.
And now for something completely different… Today, from FOX News, with video! (Tasteful video.)
Stormy Daniels claims she’s free to talk about Trump, after payment admission
Uh, who does that leave? Oh. Right.
@Greg:
Gosh, you sure make a great case for voter ID to prevent voter fraud.
That wasn’t State Department money… that was TAXPAYER money and a LOT of taxpayers don’t want their money sent to undercut a dedicated ally.
Of course not. It’s also not the same as imaginary mind-altering space rays that creates voting zombies that mysteriously vote against the WORST candidate to ever run for President.
No, that pretty much the same thing you have been focusing on all along.
@Greg:
Gloria Allred or Lisa Bloom?
@Greg: More evidence that Trump is ignoring the Russian theat.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: Mueller found 16 Russians to indict for…….. “using the internet” HUGE friday breaking news, there was an IG press conference. Big tears, no American knowingly assisted, and it had no evidence that it affected the election.
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/russia-indictments-mueller/?
Do you recall what happened when Democrats promoted the adoption of biometric national identification cards? There’s also been a lot of resistance on the right to Real ID requirements. That all seems a bit inconsistent with your premise.
@kitt: I wonder when Mueller is going to get around to indicting the Democrats that were colluding with the Russians?
@Greg: No, just a photo ID. That’s all we need for voting. Also, with recent investigations of voter fraud in mail in ballots, THAT needs to be restricted also.
Seems it’s always the Democrats. I wonder why that is?
@Greg: A vast DNA database? Why biometric why not just a valid drivers license or state issued photo ID? Why must it be a complex expensive database? Remember KISS. Or are you still stuck on the racist idea that minorities are too dumb to find he DMV.
From The Full Text of Mueller’s Indictment of 13 Russians:
That, among other things, is what the Mueller investigation asserts actually happened.
If that is established in court with supporting evidence, the next question will be whether or not there was knowledge and active cooperation on the part of anyone inside the Trump campaign or Trump administration, and whether there were any deliberate efforts to obstruct law enforcement’s attempts to find out. In my view, calculated use of the word “unwitting” defers that issue for the moment. Separating the issues is part of the strategy behind a longer game of legal chess.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #84:
It has never been established that voter fraud occurs on any statistically significant level, and enormous time and energy has been expended attempting to do so. It’s only been firmly established as part of the political right’s mythology. Oddly, all of their “remedial measures” do tend to focus most strongly on likely Democratic voters. Take away that and republican gerrymandering, and Clinton probably would have had a far greater popular vote margin than 3 million.
@kitt, #85:
All “biometric” implies is that the ID contains data that proves it matches the identity of the person it pertains to. A thumb or fingerprint can suffice. If you’re going to do Real ID, you might as well do it right. Otherwise, you’re just kidding yourself.
@Greg:
Well, if (IF) anyone is found to have cooperated, all they have to do is say they only learned about it when they read it in the papers. That ALWAYS works.
Ah. But the Russians purchasing Facebook ads that no one can even remember seeing is a MASSIVE concern. Right? You yourself just stated that only 78,000 votes could have swung three states. So, what do you call “significant”?
California counties with more registered voters than eligible citizens
Voter fraud got Franken elected
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163
Three races overturned due to election fraud by Democrats
http://politicslive.net/2017/11/09/update-3-democrat-victories-overturned-for-voter-fraud/
Philadelphia’s wide open registration system allows for illegal voting
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/city/philly-voter-fraud-trump-immigrants-registration-commissioners-penndot-20170920.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/noncitizen_voting_in_philadelphia_looks_more_feature_than_bug.html
Illegal votes possibly swung elections in New Hampshire
https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2017/09/07/new-data-illegal-voters-may-decided-new-hampshire-2016/
Another study with an estimate of 25 million fraudulent votes for Hillary
http://yournewswire.com/npr-25-million-fake-clinton-votes/
McaAuliffe won’t cooperate with a study on voter fraud. One wonders why
http://freebeacon.com/issues/terry-mcauliffe-obstructs-efforts-investigate-voter-fraud/
As many as 5.7 million illegal votes in 2008 election
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/noncitizen-illegal-vote-number-higher-than-estimat/
Voter fraud in Detroit
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/
Nah, illegal immigrants don’t vote
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/26/hillary-clinton-received-800000-votes-from-nonciti/
A study of non-citizens voting
https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Do-Non-Citizens-Vote-in-US-Elections-Richman-et-al.pdf
Estimated 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary
http://www.inquisitr.com/3719036/3-million-illegal-immigrants-voted-gregg-phillips-votestand-donald-trump-final-popular-vote-count-2016-predictions/
A few thousand votes determined who Florida went for in 2000 due to the Democrats disenfranchising the overseas military vote. It is a pretty delicate balance. Further, in Texas at least, voter ID requirements had NO impact of voting. So, again, one wonders why the Democrats are so vehemently against it. Particularly when:
Voter ID; good for me, not for thee
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/23/irony-bernie-backers-claim-fraud-ca-dem-chair-race-lack-voter-id/
A photo does that just as well, it’s cheaper and it does not provide the government with personal information…. that can be hacked or abused.
There’s a very simple explanation for that which doesn’t involve voter fraud or registration fraud. Do people routinely call in to report when they leave a voting precinct, a county, or a state? No, they don’t. Consequently, voter rolls tend to show more registered voters than live in the areas in question. If you can demonstrate that more people voted than are registered in a given area, that would actually mean something. But that’s never what they do, is it?
It was subsequently determined that the study was inaccurate. The number of alleged felons who voted illegally was inflated. FOX News went with the original story and never bothered with a retraction.
Franken-Coleman Senate Recount: Flap over felon votes shows GOP playing fast and loose with facts
Coleman got fewer votes. That was how things came out after everything was closely scrutinized. No doubt his supporters would have preferred for the original erroneous count to have gone unchallenged.
I’m not going to waste any more of my time with this bullshit.
You don’t really want highly reliable ID. What you want is an excuse to purge targeted groups from the rolls, and means to make it more difficult for them to cast their ballots. The reason for efforts to curtail Sunday after-church voting were absurdly transparent. Also requiring students to return to their home counties to vote, and reducing the number of voting machines in certain locations so as to create waits that were hours long. People knew what officials were doing and what their motives were.
@Greg:
No, indeed I do.
Really? I do? Hmmm… it seems to me that with photo ID, you don’t NEED to purge the dead and no longer residing from voter rolls; only those who show up with an ID that matches their face get to vote and the dead certainly aren’t going to make that trip.
And that would be…?
… should be obvious to anyone thinking. This prevents them from voting where they are in school then returning home and voting again. As has happened numerous times. As you know.
Numbers of machines are based on turnout. Maybe the Democrats shouldn’t bus in so many illegal voters to certain precincts.
Here’s what your voter fraud B.S. actually comes down to—a complete database of proven voter fraud cases, compiled by the Heritage Foundation, which of course is putting the worse possible spin on things.
So, a total of 1,107 proven instances, in a nation with 146,311,000 registered voters. Those 1,107 instances were spread over 47 states. Not only that, but they were spread over a period of time that spans well more than two decades.
In other words, they’re such a tiny fraction of all votes cast, and spread so thinly geographically and over time, that they don’t even begin to be statistically relevant. They’ve affected nothing.
The right is making a very big deal out of what is for all practical purposes a nonexistent problem, with the intention of using it for voter suppression.
When it comes to very real problems—like senseless multiple victim gun violence that is becoming almost routine, or the fact that a hostile foreign power is demonstrably attacking our democracy from within—and suddenly they don’t see any problem.
@Greg: Who says it isnt a problem, you are correct its been happening for decades, it isnt going to stop. These indictments are a friggin JOKE, innocent until proven guilty, I am sure they will be on the next plane here from St. Petersburg. Vlad good ol boy will hand them right over. We have bigger fish right in our midst, DWS hiring IT guys giving them unlimited access to congress computers. A government that cant account for taxpayers dollars, let alone records that get bleach bit, or hard drives that go missing or intentionally destroyed. We have our own house to clean and the locks need changing. An exterminator called in to remove the rats that infest the republic.
@Greg:
Talk about BS spin; those are those who are CAUGHT. You think every one is detected and caught? This is probably 10% of it.
In Texas, the “Turn Texas Blue” organization was caught on tape discussing how they committed voter fraud… I don’t see their conviction on there.
Also, since you only looked at the top number and cheered that your p arty gets away with most of the voter fraud it perpetrates, if you open some of the actual cases up, they are cases of MULTIPLE votes.
Really. Making a big deal out of voter fraud, huh? Is it as big a deal you sore losers are making out of your imaginary “Russian collusion”? There IS no bigger whine-a-thon than you liberals over Hillary losing, yet you criticize reaction to REAL voter fraud? A fraudulent vote TAKES AWAY a legitimate vote of a qualified citizen… THAT is “voter suppression” and the left is fully engaged in it, per the PROOF. It is the ONE and ONLY reason the left opposes something so simple and logical (and a requirement almost everywhere else) as a valid photo ID to vote.
We see a problem, only we choose not to react until we have facts. Rather than simply blame a hunk of metal for the crime and close the book on it, it would probably be better to try and find how the crime was carried out, what motivated it and address those issues. But, you know, we don’t have stock in the political agenda of banning guns.